Due to a strange quirk in Alberta’s election finance laws, all or most donations collected by political parties during the official by-election period between November 16, 2017 and February 14, 2018 were not reported in the regular quarterly financial reports. Those donations are instead included in this by-election report.

The report showed the Alberta NDP raising $885,206.29 in donations during this three month period, which would include the party’s aggressive year-end fundraising appeal.

When combined with the quarterly reports, this means the NDP fundraised more than $1.5 million in the period covering the final quarter of 2017 and first quarter of 2018.

It is my understanding that the three-month long by-election financial reporting period is a hold-over from when the old Progressive Conservative regime increased maximum donation limits from $15,000 to $30,000 for individuals, corporations or unions during the writ period. The NDP banned corporate and union donations in 2015 and have since lowered the maximum annual donation limit to $4,000.

The top donors to political parties during the Calgary-Lougheed by-election period (November 16, 2017 to February 14, 2018):

The Western Freedom Party has been renamed the Freedom Conservative Party, according to Elections Alberta. The party was originally formed as the Alberta First Party in 1999, renamed the Separation Party in 2004 and again renamed the Alberta First Party in 2013. It was renamed the Western Freedom Party in April 2018 and again renamed the Freedom Conservative Party in June 2018.

The party’s Facebook page does not yet reflect the name change, but it wants to make sure that Albertans “Don’t find yourself waking up one day to find that the World Bank or George Soros and Aga Khan own your financial institutions. You will then understand what you should have done to stop the UN, the Songbird initiative, the Boreal Initiative, Y to Y and the Leap Manifesto and take your country back from the elites!“

It is not yet known what this fringe party will be named in 2019, but stay tuned.

Attempts by Jason Kenney’s opponents to paint him as an extremist social conservative failed to stop the United Conservative Party leader from winning a crushing landslide victory today in Calgary-Lougheed.

Phillip van der Merwe

With 22 of 22 polls reporting, Kenney had earned 7,760 votes, 71.51 percent of the total votes cast in the by-election. The UCP had a strong candidate, a strong organization and solid base of voter support in the district. And like the previous two by-elections held since the last election, this district avoided the New Democratic Party’s Orange Wave when voters re-elected Progressive Conservative Dave Rodney in 2015.

NDP candidate Phillip van der Merwe placed second with 1,822 votes, 16.79 percent of the votes cast. van der Merwe was a high quality candidate for the party in Calgary, but his chances of upsetting Kenney were always slim to none.

The NDP were spared the embarrassment of placing third, a spot that fell to newly elected Liberal Party leader David Khan, who earned 1,009 votes, 9.3 percent of the total vote. Khan’s showing was only a small improvement on the party’s showing in 2015, but it should be enough to concern the NDP that even a Liberal Party on life-support can eat into their vote share.

Despite support on the campaign trail from Premier Rachel Notley and a handful of high-profile cabinet ministers, NDP support was cut in half from the 2015 election, which is not a good sign for the governing party.

David Khan

The NDP should use the Calgary-Lougheed by-election as an opportunity to recalibrate their line of attack against the UCP leader. Kenney is a professional political networker unlike we have ever seen in Alberta politics, and he should not be underestimated.

While the NDP have been racking upeasy winsagainst fumbling and confused UCP MLAs on the floor of the Legislative Assembly, Kenney has been activating a network of conservative political activists and supporters he has built over the past twenty-five years.

Two months ago, I wrote that the NDP were betting Albertans would forgive their more unpopular policies when reminded of the Kenney’s more bizarre social conservative views. On the flip-side, Kenney was betting Albertans would forgive his social conservative views when reminded of the NDP’s more unpopular policies.

Make sure to vote in the Best of Alberta Politics 2017 Survey. The first round of voting will close at 11:59pm on Friday, December 15, 2017. Voting for the top 3 results in each category will begin on Sunday, December 17, 2017. We will reveal the results of the survey on the next episode of the Daveberta Podcast, which you can listen and subscribe to on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, and wherever you find podcasts online.

The UCP opposes Bill 30 and, as its leader in the Assembly, Nixon has lead the Official Opposition’s charge against it.

While Kenney issued a written statement in an attempt to blame the firing on Nixon’s age (he was 25-year old at the time) and criticize the NDP for attacking the UCP MLA’s “personal integrity,” Premier Rachel Notley responded directly to the issue of sexual harassment:

Text of Notley’s statement:

As I’m sure will come as no surprise to all of you, in my view, this is a very, very serious issue. We are at an important time right now, where courageous women across North America are coming forward to talk about the problem of sexual harassment and sexual harassment in the workplace. It’s a very difficult problem. We know it proliferates everywhere, and it’s not easy to address. What we do know, though, what’s going to keep women safe, what’s going to help deal with this problem, is assuring as a first step is assuring that they know they have the right to speak up, and that people will support them when they speak up. Mr. Nixon’s response when someone spoke up was to fire her. That is not the right response. Moreover, since that time, Mr. Nixon has gone into the House and fought against a bill that would have protected someone in Alberta in the very same situation as the woman that Mr. Nixon chose to fire. Mr. Kenney is actually the person that needs to answer questions about this now. This is his hand-picked lieutenant. His hand-picked political lieutenant who is leading the caucus in this House, who fired a woman for speaking up against sexual harassment which was found to have happened, who is now fighting against a bill that would protect women in Alberta from the very same sexual harassment in the workplace. This is very, very serious. I think when women wake up this morning and read this article and hear more about what’s happened, they’re going to wonder where their government stands, and I want them to know that their government stands with them, and that is why we’re working so hard to get this bill through the House today.

Kenney gave no indication in his written statement if he plans to remove Nixon from his role as the UCP’s leader in the Legislative Assembly and critic for Democracy and Accountability before MLA’s adjourn for the Christmas break – and voters go to the polls in Calgary-Lougheed – on Thursday.

The state of discourse in Alberta politics (and social media), Political Action Committees, election reforms, the Calgary-Lougheed by-election, and federal candidate nomination gossip are just some of the topics covered in the latest episode of The Daveberta Podcast with Dave Cournoyer and Ryan Hastman (recorded on Sunday, Dec. 10, 2017).

We’d love to hear what you think of the podcast, so feel free to leave a review where you download it and share the podcast with a friend. Also feel free to leave a comment on this blog, Facebook or Twitter or send us an email at podcast@daveberta.ca.

We’d also like to send a big thanks to our producer, Adam Rozenhart, for his help in making this podcast a reality.

Thanks!

(Photo: We recorded the latest episode of the Daveberta Podcast this weekend. Guess who’s laptop and coffee mug these are? ☕️💻)

The construction of a new cancer centre in Calgary was a big issue in the last election, so a recent comment by a United Conservative Party MLA Glenn van Dijken about the new Calgary Cancer Centre being a “fancy box” certainly gave van der Merwe some extra material to use while campaigning at the doors. But while health care is one of the issues he spoke most passionately about during our chat, jobs and the economy remain a top issue for many Calgary voters.

While the economy has stabilized since 2014 and is showing signs of growth, van der Merwe was honest about the slow recovery in Calgary.

“Officially, if you look at all the indicators the recession is over, but we are certainly empathetic to the fact that this has maybe not translated to families yet,” said van der Merwe. “People are hurting and we know there is still more work to do and that’s exactly why we have to continue.”

“I can tell you that families are very concerned about Mr. [Jason] Kenney’s 20 percent budget cuts and what that will mean in the economy alone – just ripping the bottom from under it,” said van der Merwe, echoing statements made by Premier Rachel Notley about the dangers of UCP budget cuts.

And on the NDP’s chances in a future election, van der Merwe believes that 2015 election was more than the “accident” that the NDP’s opponents tend to frame it as.

“I think people are underestimating what happened in 2015, thinking that it was purely a protest vote. And while there obviously was elements of that, I think it was a sign that Alberta has changed,” said van der Merwe. “And that is what we are finding in this race.”

“Mr. Kenney is out of touch with what Calgary wants. Not only is his social stance out of touch with the 21st century, period, but it’s out of touch with what Albertans and Calgarians want,” said van der Merwe.

Kenney and the UCP tied themselves in knots last month over the issue of Gay-Straight Alliances in Alberta schools, an issue the NDP were eager to let their opposition stumble over.

“Alberta is not the Alberta it was 20 years ago, and that’s a good thing.”

Green Party leader Romy Tittel released her party’s manifesto for democracy, which calls for the adoption of a Proportional Representation electoral system, the banning of all election donations and use of mass media for campaign communications, and the creation of citizen initiated legislation through online petitions.

All-Candidates Debate: The Calgary Leadership Forum is hosting an all-candidates debate for Calgary-Lougheed on December 10, 2017 from 1:30 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. at the Braeside Community Hall (11024 Braeside Drive SW, Calgary).

“We need to shine a light on the unregulated dark money that is corrupting our democracy,” Liberal Party leader David Khan said in a Liberal Caucus news release. “Albertans deserve to know who has donated and who is donating to PACs, how much they are donating, and where this money is going afterwards. It’s the only way they can be confident that big money is not buying and selling our democracy.”

Like flowing water, political money will find the path of least resistance.

It did not take long before wealthy donors, now unable to fund political parties, began pouring funds into unregulated PACs, which with the exception of advertising activities, fall outside of Alberta’s political finance laws. The most notable PAC created since the NDP banned corporate political party donations was Jason Kenney‘s Unite Alberta PAC, which supported his campaign for the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party and the United Conservative Party.

Swann’s bill defines PACs as “a corporation or group established or maintained for the primary purpose of accepting political action contributions and incurring political action expenses to engage in political promotion but does not include (i) a registered party, or (ii) a registered constituency association.”

And under the bill, a PAC must apply for registration with Elections Alberta when it has incurred expenses of $1000 or plans to incur political action expenses of at least $1000, or when it has accepted contributions of $1000 or plans to accept contributions of at least $1000.

The Order Paper for Monday, December 4, 2017 shows that Labour Minister Christina Gray, who is also responsible for democratic reform, is scheduled to introduce Bill 32: An Act to Strengthen and Protect Democracy in Alberta for first reading. Gray has said the government would introduce legislation regulating PACs, and if this bill does that, it will likely remove Swann’s bill off the Order Paper because of its similar focus.

We will have to wait until Gray’s Bill 32 is tabled before we know what action the NDP government plans to take, but even if their bill is removed from the order papers, Swann and Khan deserve the credit for making unregulated and unaccountable Political Action Committees an issue in Alberta politics.

The AAPPA’s interim leader is Gil Poitras, who is listed by Elections Alberta as having served as Chief Financial Officer for the Alberta Party in 2013 and 2014 and as the president of the Alberta Party association in Leduc-Beaumont in 2015. The AAPPA’s president is David Inscho, the former president of the Wildrose association in Lac La Biche-St. Paul-Two Hills.

Larry Heather is a social conservative activist and perennial election candidate who has run in at least twenty school board, municipal, provincial and federal elections since 1984. Most recently he ran in Calgary’s mayoral election where he earned 848 votes (0.2 percent of the vote). In 2016, he ran as an Independent candidate in the Calgary-Greenway by-election where he earned 106 votes (1.28 percent of the vote).

Notley Q&A on CBC

Premier Rachel Notley will be taking questions live on air on CBC Radio’s Edmonton AM program on Tuesday, November 28, 2017 from 8:00am to 9:00am. Take advantage of your chance to engage with our premier and send in your questions.

Daveberta Podcast

Thanks to everyone who has subscribed and listened to the latest episode of the Daveberta Podcast. If you haven’t listened to it yet, download the podcast and let us know what you think. If you like what you hear, you can help us by subscribing to the podcast, submitting a review, sharing with your friends, and tuning in again next time (we will be releasing the next episode in December).

The Calgary-Lougheed by-election, the Alberta Party leadership race, a new ThinkHQ poll, Rachel Notley as Canada’s Pipeline Paladin, and changing electoral boundaries are just some of the topics covered in the latest episode of The Daveberta Podcast with Dave Cournoyer and Ryan Hastman (recorded on Sunday, Nov. 26, 2017).

Photo: Former Alberta Premier Peter Lougheed. The Calgary-Lougheed electoral district is named after Lougheed.

It has been one week since the Calgary-Lougheed by-election was called. The by-election is being held on Dec. 14, 2017, but voters in this district also have the option of voting in advance polls on Dec. 6, 7, 8 and 9, 2017.

This is the third by-election since the general election of 2017 that swept the New Democratic Party into government. And like the previous two by-elections, this one will be held in a district where voters elected a Progressive Conservative MLA in 2015.

Four candidates have so far been nominated to stand in the by-election:

This will be a tough election for the NDP, as this area of southwest Calgary is considered bedrock conservative territory. In the recent Calgary mayoral election, voters in this part of Calgary supported conservative Bill Smith over progressive Naheed Nenshi.

Jason Kenney, United Conservative Party

UCP candidate Jason Kenney drew a big crowd of supporters when he opened his campaign office on Nov 19, 2017. The recently elected UCP leader is almost universally considered the favourite to win this by-election.

The claims are reminiscent of Kenney’s rhetoric and photo-op from December 31, 2016, when he insinuated the same Carbon Levy would lead to a spike in automobile gas prices. That didn’t happen. With constant predictions that the sky is falling on the issue of a carbon tax and rampant truthiness on other issues, Kenney is sounding more and more like Chicken Little.

This will be Khan’s third election attempt since 2014 and his first since becoming leader earlier this year.

He first ran as his party’s candidate the 2014 Calgary-West by-election, where he placed 3rd with 8.5 percent of the vote. In the 2015 general election he ran in Calgary-Buffalo, where he placed 3rd with 24.7 percent of the vote (the constituency was represented by Kent Hehr from 2008 to 2015).

Tittel was selected as the party’s leader at a November 5, 2017 meeting in Red Deer. She previously ran for the federal Green Party in the 2015 general election in Foothills, where she placed 4th with 3.25 percent of the vote.

Sitting out this by-election presents a missed opportunity for the Alberta Party to debut itself following its revival last weekend in Red Deer. But having their candidate get clobbered by Kenney would take a bite out of their narrative that they are a growing home for moderate conservative voters. By not running a candidate, the Alberta Party saves themselves the embarrassment of placing third, fourth or fifth in this by-election.

The by-election was necessitated by the resignation of United Conservative Party MLA Dave Rodney on October 30, 2017 to allow his party’s new leader, Jason Kenney, to seek a seat in the Legislative Assembly. Kenney was officially nominated as his party’s candidate earlier this week and is widely seen as the favourite to win the by-election.

“In this by-election, Calgary-Lougheed voters can tell the NDP to stop their job-killing policies, stop quadrupling the province’s debt and stop raising our taxes,” Kenney said in a press release, setting a curmudgeonly tone for the by-election campaign.

The New Democratic Party will nominate physician Phillip van der Merwe as their candidate on Saturday, November 18, 2017. van der Merwe practices medicine at a Family Practice and Vasectomy Clinic in Calgary’s Mission neighbourhood. He was the co-chair of the PCN Physician Leads Executive when Health Minister Sarah Hoffman announced a new agreement with the province’s doctors to overhaul the primary care network system.

van der Merwe is also openly gay and married, which could create some interesting politics because of Kenney’s opposition to the recently passed Bill 24, which prevents teachers from outing students who join Gay-Straight Alliances to their parents.

van der Merwe told Postmedia’s Don Braid that he was running for the NDP “because I don’t believe the NDP is anything but a good centrist alternative for all Albertans … an inclusive and welcoming party.”

The other parties have yet to announce their candidates, though there is speculation that new party leaders David Khan of the Liberal Party and Romy Tittel of the Green Party will join the race. The Alberta Party is also expected to run a candidate in this by-election.

Here is a look at election results from Calgary-Lougheed for the General Elections from 1993 to 2015:

The exact timing of the by-election will be determined by Premier Rachel Notley but the smart money is on it being called soon. Every day that Kenney is not tied up with Legislative duties in Edmonton, he will be campaigning across the province.

Despite being a close race in the 2015 election, with Rodney finishing 502 votes ahead of New Democrat Mihai Ion, the Orange Wave is now at low tide in Calgary. It seems likely that Kenney should have an easy time being elected in this constituency, which has elected conservative MLAs since it was first created in 1993 (but as well all know, by-elections can sometimes produce unexpected results…).

There is some irony that Kenney, who is in the midst of an ongoing feud with the Lougheed family, would become the MLA for a constituency named after Peter Lougheed. As a Member of Parliament, Kenney was quoted in 1999 describing the “neo-Stalinist make-work projects of the Lougheed and Getty years.“

Presented with the chance to directly challenge Kenney, will Liberal Party leader David Khan carry his party’s banner in the by-election? His chance of victory are slim to none, but it would give him an opportunity to campaign and potentially face Kenney in any local all-candidates debates (if Kenney participates).

David Khan

The by-election also provides an opportunity for the Alberta Party to run a candidate. The party did not participate in the last Calgary by-election in Calgary-Greenway, but the recent floor-crossing of former NDP MLA Karen McPherson and potential future floor-crossings by former PC MLAs could provide some momentum for the upstart party.

The Calgary-Lougheed constituency was first created in 1993 and was represented by Provincial Treasurer Jim Dinning until 1997. PC MLA Marlene Graham then represented the constituency until 2004, when Rodney was first elected.

This would be the second time in recent history that a sitting MLA resigned in order to allow a party leader to run in a by-election. Len Webber resigned as MLA for Calgary-Foothills in 2014 to trigger a by-election for PC Party leader Jim Prentice. And in 1998, former Liberal Party leader Grant Mitchell stepped down as MLA for Edmonton-McClung to allow new party leader Nancy MacBeth to run in a by-election.

I have created a dedicated webpage to track party nominations and the candidates running in the Calgary-Lougheed by-election.

Here is a look at election results from Calgary-Lougheed for the General Elections from 1993 to 2015:

Jean told reporters that he declined to accept any critic role, and despite the ill will generated towards each other in the leadership race, it seems hard to believe Kenney would completely shut-out the former party leader.

But this move, or lack thereof, will undoubtably fuel rumours that Jean is considering leaving politics. His resignation would trigger a by-election in the Fort McMurray-Conklin constituency, which he has represented since May 2015.

Kenney does not have a seat in the Assembly and indicated today that Calgary-Lougheed MLA Dave Rodney will resign on November 1, 2017 in order to create a by-election for his party’s new leader. Rodney was first elected in 2004.

David Eggen

As the new leader of the Official Opposition, Kenney will face some immediate issues as the Assembly reconvenes. He will need to reorganize his caucus office staff, reassign his party’s MLAs to new critic roles, and set an opposition agenda for the next 16 months. Kenney will do his best to avoid the bozo–eruptions that plagued the former Wildrose MLAs in his UCP caucus and pivot to issues that will solidify his party’s conservative base.

Eggen has said most schools have been working with the province to establish codes of conduct against discrimination and adopt policies to protect LGBTQ youth, but a small group of mostly publicly-subsidized private schools are resisting. This bill could reignite the debate over the existence of publicly-subsidized private schools, some of which charge tens of thousands of tuition per student in order to attend.

Rachel Notley

Despite calls from their political allies, Notley’s NDP government has avoided overhauling the structure of Alberta’s school system. But open resistance by private schools over GSAs, and by publicly-funded Catholic Superintendents wanting to dumb-down the Sexual Education curriculum, could force a debate over accountability of public funds being provided to these religious schools.

Of course, Notley is not telling publicly-funded Catholic schools not to teach Catholicism, she is telling them that they must teach consent and acknowledge the existence of homosexuality (welcome to the 21st century).

Alberta is one of a few remaining provinces that provides full public funding to Catholic schools. Former PC MLA David King, who served as education minister from 1979 to 1986, has collected close to 1,000 signatures in an online petitiondemanding a referendum on the future of publicly funded Catholic schools in Alberta.

David King

On the flip-side, as Kenney enters his role as UCP leader, he will hope that Albertans forgive his more bizarre social conservative views and rhetoric when reminded of the NDP’s more unpopular policies.

We can expect Kenney to spend a lot of time criticizing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who has developed a relatively friendly working relationship with Notley’s government on issues ranging from oil pipeline construction to climate change. With deep connections to the Conservatives in Ottawa, expect a Kenney-led UCP to march in lockstep with their federal cousins on these issues.

Justin Trudeau

Notley’s NDP subtly shifted their messaging last year, focusing on launching new programs and projects they argue will “make lives better for Albertans.” This will provide the NDP with a significant contrast to the Kenney-led UCP, who they will argue would attack public services and hurt Alberta families.

Kenney has said that if he becomes Premier in 2019, the months that follow would be known as the “Summer of Repeal” as his government would immediately move to repeal legislation passed by the NDP since 2015. The trouble with Kenney’s promise to repeal all of the NDP’s agenda is that, despite anger from conservatives still bitter from losing the 2015 election, some of the changes introduced by Notley’s NDP are popular among Albertans.

Would a UCP government cancel the construction of the Cancer Treatment Centre and the Green Line in Calgary or the new hospital in south Edmonton? Would a UCP government increase school fees and cancel the $25/day childcare program? Would Kenney close schools and hospitals, like his political role model Ralph Klein did in the 1990s? Expect the NDP start asking these questions when MLAs meet in Edmonton tomorrow.

This weekend’s UCP leadership vote and the resumption of the Legislative session tomorrow marks a huge change in Alberta’s political landscape. Alberta politics has changed drastically over the past two years, and even the past decade. The next few weeks, and the next 16 months, in Alberta politics will be fascinating to watch.

The opinions expressed on this blog represent my own and not those of my employer or any organization I may be affiliated with.

In addition, my thoughts and opinions change from time to time. I consider this a necessary consequence of having an open mind. This blog is intended to provide a semi-permanent point in time snapshot and manifestation of the various ideas running around my brain, and as such any thoughts and opinions expressed within out-of-date posts may not the same, nor even similar, to those I may hold today.